Sunday, April 21, 2013

A 12th century visit to Meron

Here is Benjamin of Tudela's 12th century account of visiting Meron, and you could see he visited the kivrei tzaddikim:

"...and Jewish sepulchres. R. Johanan ben Zakkai and R. Jehudah[1] Halevi are buried here. All these places are situated in Lower Galilee. From here is is two days to Tymin or Timnathah, where Simon the Just and many Israelites are buried, and thence three parasangs to Medon or Meron.[2] In the neighbourhood there is a cave in which are the sepulchres of Hillel and Shammai. Here also are twenty sepulchres of disciples, including the sepulchres of R. Benjamin ben Japheth, and of R. Jehudah ben Bethera."

[1] I used the image from the 1633 edition, because I like it, and as you can see, it says Jonathan. But in Marcus Nathan Adler's critical edition the text has Jehudah on the authority of two good manuscripts, while two others which he used have Jonathan. Adler writes that as R. Yehudah Ha-levi died 30 years before Rabbi Benjamin visited, "the question of the burial-place of our great national poet is thus finally settled," contra the suggestions of earlier scholars (e.g., Shadal) that R. Yehuda Ha-levi didn't really reach Eretz Yisrael, much less die there. And see these two posts by Eliezer Brodt (here and here).

[2] He cites the manuscripts, and the better reading is "Medon, that is Meron."

19 comments:

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While you are certainly correct about the latter point, but how could he be included as a disciple of Hillel or Shammai? Furthermore, R. Binyamin mentions various tannaim by name. R. Shimon may not have been "Rashbi" yet, but he was certainly a well-known, important tanna.

You are probably right. But it is difficult to accept that during the short time between these two reports Rashbi became the star of Meron out of nowhere. R' Shmuel finds there 24 shuls of Rashbi (some destroyed), a school and a popular grave (with his son Elazar) with 2 big trees on it. All this around 1210.

I'll tell you, I am unfamiliar with R. Shmuel ben Shimshon's account. Is there any chance that it is pseudepigraphic? Is it known to be authentic? If it is authentic then we may have an interesting to witness to, roughly, the birth of the identification of Meron with R. Shimon. And 24 shuls? Meron is so obscure that R. Binyamin doesn't even say how many Jews live there, giving the number in Tiberias as 50, directly before, and another 50 at Almah. Also, we may conjecture that the very name Meron was barely known, which is why he gives it both as Medon and Meron (assuming this is his words and not a later gloss).

I was actually thinking the same thing. Could at least the part about Meron be a later interpolation? But it doesn't look that way, this passage can be found in the older manuscripts (such as Parma MS) as is taken on it's face value by all the researches I'm familiar with.

The Rashbi shuls are not mentioned in connection with Meron. The one he saw was in Kfar Ba'aram. The italian Rabbi Moshe Basola confirms this belief in 1522. It seems clear they are speaking about the ancient synagogue still standing there (well, in ruins).

What is tbe best book on kivrei tzadikim, ie, identifying clearly where they are buried and how one can get there? Can anyone reccoemend one? My interest is mainly in Biblical and Mishnaic/Talmudic figures. Would also be intested in commentary on the various gravesites, such as when they were identified, who identified them, conflicting traditions, locations, etc. Is there any one volume which does both?